"Some of these things can be fixed in your own garage "for free,” but I know what my billable rate is and I know the hours I put in at work and it's much cheaper for me to pay someone else to work on my cars. I admit it; I've become a checkbook mechanic."

 

So, you've gone out and blown the kids’ college fund and part of your retirement money (and told the wife the kitchen will get done next year) and bought a classic Ferrari. Congratulations and welcome to the club. Now the bad news; these things aren't cheap to keep running. Since I'm supposed to focus on the classic cars, (365GT4 2+2 to the 348's), we have to be honest, none of these cars just rolled off the assembly line and the word warranty didn't really exist in Italian back then. All of them, unless you bought a Pebble Beach restoration with the paint still wet on it, are going to need parts replaced due to age (and wear) at this point.


308s still look timeless (to some people), but the first ones are 30 years old this year. That's a long time for any car, let alone a hand built exotic that was constructed well before QS9000 quality control came to Italy. Face it, they're old and they're going to need work. You need to be prepared to spend money to get one on the road and keep it there. Let's take a look at how much.

As most people know, I purchased my 308 GTS QV earlier this year as a drivable project car. It has door dings, a few dents and scratches and a bit of rust in the passenger door. At some point, I'm going to restore it but I'll have some fun with it first, using it as an event car before I make it too pretty to drive to the store and back out of fear of getting a few rock chips in the paint. But to use it as an event car, I have to have 100% confidence in it mechanically.


The first thing we noticed that was wrong and needed to be fixed right away was a smashed turn signal lens on the driver's side. I called and/or emailed four of the usual suspects but none had it in stock. NLA is one acronym that every classic Ferrari owner will learn at some point or another: “No Longer Available.” Damn.

“…but, the Euro lens, which is clear and orange, is available.”

“Fine. I'll take one.”

“$75.”

“Ouch. Oh crap, now I need the one for the passenger side too...”

Well, there went $150 bucks real quick. Good thing the labor was simple and it took me more time to dig out the Philips head screwdriver than it took me to swap them out.

Okay, now the fun part; getting the parts for a major service. I called around to a few places and most were right around the numbers I'm going to quote (I'll hide who gave me the prices to allow everyone to adjust accordingly). The timing belt set with all of the gaskets and bearings is around $1100. Yes, the belts themselves are about $20 each, but if you're not sure that everything works and you want to do it right, it’s time to spend the money. Since the belts are off, it's also a good time to rebuild the water pump, especially if you were sold a car with not many records. Add another $185 to the list.

Ohm's law was taught in school in Italy in 1983, but not always practiced in the field, so with the car being an unknown, it is also a good idea to replace the distributor caps and rotors and as well as the plug wires. Let's see, $225 for reproduction caps (need two), $25 for the rotors (two again) and, get this, $550 for plug wires. Now I know the tips of the plugs are made out of platinum, but I never realized the plug wires were too! After putting a thousand miles on the car in about a week (see, I really do drive my cars) in July, I also noticed that the throttle cable was a bit stiff. What the hell, let's get a new one. There goes another $60.

So let's survey the damage so far: $2545 in parts. AND THIS IS ASSUMING WE DON'T FIND ANYTHING BROKEN "WHILE WE'RE IN THERE"!

Now the really fun part: labor. I admit it; I'm lucky. I found a great independent to work on my cars that really is a mechanic and not a parts changer. He does take his time, but everything is always repaired and not just "fixed" when it comes back to me. The great thing is that he does business in the boonies of east Tennessee which means that I don't have to pay for either huge salaries or a ton of overhead. Labor works out to be around $45 an hour.

Since he's going to be taking everything apart and inspecting it at the same time, I figure about 20 hours are going to be spent swapping everything around, so there goes another $900. Let's pray that nothing else is really FUBAR'd. I’m going to replace the fuel lines and have everything else checked out and some items repainted while he's in there, so it may be safe to just double the labor to $1800. If you're not so lucky and want the book stamped by an authorized dealer, be prepared to pay somewhere between $100 and $130 an hour for labor, bringing the total cost for those 20 up to as high as $2600.

So, a major service on an "unknown" 308 is around $4200, higher depending on where you live. Granted, some of these things can be fixed in your own garage "for free,” but I know what my billable rate is and I know the hours I put in at work and it's much cheaper for me to pay him to work on my cars. I admit it; I've become a checkbook mechanic. Oh well, worse things have happened to me before.

Notice I haven't mentioned rust repair, repainting the car or redoing any leather work? All of that stuff is "plus, plus.” Now, before I start getting nasty emails saying I'm nuts, I try and make sure that the cars are serviced "by the book". If you tried to service an AMC Pacer, guess what? The parts are going to be expensive. Most Pacers aren't maintained to this level (except for a few owned by 40 year olds in Milwaukee that still live at home), but a Ferrari is a performance car that needs to be regularly maintained to get the most out of it. With some of these cars being 30 years old and not very fast compared to most modern cars, they'll be down right slow if they're not running properly.

Yes, 308s, Mondials and the 400s are getting cheap to buy, but remember, they're still Ferraris and they weren't cheap when they were new. The purchase price may have come down, but inflation has made sure that the labor and parts have kept up with modern cars. Make sure you know this going in and budget for it. Then, life really is good.